once upon a time
by symphonies of you
Summary: "She's definitely beyond perplexed, and she knows she's probably making a huge fuss over nothing but she feels like she's trapped in a prison-like galaxy swirling with a multitude of impossibilities and maddening questions without answers." - katie/fred ii romance, cross-gen for the quidditch league fanfiction forum competition. rated t for slight swearing. one-shot.


**FOR:** _The Quidditch League Fanfiction Forum _- round three: rare pairings.

**THANKS TO: **Jane (enjolras-lesamis) for beta-ing.

**WORDS: **exactly 3,000. =]

* * *

_We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. _- Oscar Wilde.

* * *

.

Once upon a dream, Katie Bell was in love with Fred Weasley.

.

She was in love with him, up until the day he was crushed and burned out. She still remembers the screams and cries crashing down around her in the distance like a shower of sparks borne of terror and darkness when it all happened in a flash.

She loved him, but he never knew.

.

Fast forward twenty years, and she's working in a (Muggle) bar in one of the towns on the outskirts of London.

"Oi, get me another cup of whiskey!" a man shouts towards her.

She whirls into the kitchen to refill his tall glass and slides it across the table to his hands.

"Bell, your shift's up. Scram!" the manager booms, making a shooing motion with her hands.

"I think I'll stay for a quick drink or two!" she shouts back, grabbing her purse and earning a shrug from the stout woman of forty-five.

Only, she has more than just a quick drink or two. More like four long, dreary drinks over which she muses over the dullness of the current life she leads.

The doors swing open and—

It's him, it's him, _it's him_.

_It can't be_.

Dammit, have the blasted drinks gotten to her? _He's dead_.

A face suddenly appears in front of her. _His _face. How did he get over to her table so quickly?

"You alright?" he addresses her with that charming, familiar lilt to his voice.

"Fred?" she asks, her voice wavering at the overwhelming myriad of emotions and thoughts.

"At your service," he replies. "Though I wonder, how exactly do you know my name? I don't think we've met because I wouldn't forget a pretty face such as yours…wait, _have _we met before?"

That's the last thing she hears before she faints, and the world goes black.

.

Her eyes flutter open at the heavenly smell of black coffee. She's laying on a sofa that isn't hers in what appears to be a mildly cluttered sitting room. Which also isn't hers.

Manoeuvring herself into a sitting position, she gasps at the assortment of joke items moving of their own accord and sprawling across every bare surface. Glancing downwards, she frowns as she notices that someone has taken her heels off. And then, the worst headache of all headaches rips through the back of her head, causing her to swear quite loudly and colourfully.

How much did she drink last night? Oh Godric, if someone had taken advantage of her while she was unconscious…

Never mind, all of her clothes are still present._  
_

A familiar yet unfamiliar guy comes dashing into the sitting room, expertly manoeuvring his way around the joke items littering the floor. _Fred_. Why does this guy look exactly like Fred?

"Heard you shrieking all the way from the kitchen. Woman, you've got a loud scream there," he quips cheerfully with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I did _not _shriek, nor did I scream," she retorts, narrowing her eyes at the Fred look-alike.

"Oh right, it was a groan. Or a grunt. Maybe both. Sounded like a mountain troll, you did. Not that I've ever met one, of course," he grins.

"You're incorrigible," she mutters.

"Oh lovely, you've guessed my middle name, too. I suppose you've got a hidden talent for guessing the names of strangers, haven't you?" he replies, his eyes still twinkling like rebel stars in a clear afternoon sky.

She opens her mouth to reply when another wave of head-splitting pain hits her head, and she lets loose another sea of cringe-worthy words instead.

"Oh right, hangover. Drink this up. Loving the language, by the way," he says, tossing her a small bottle with _Hangover Potion _messily scrawled on the label.

She downs the potion in one go, and the memories of last night's events breach the floodgates as the pain fades away like the endless black from the dawn sky.

Fred. His name's Fred.

"Thanks. So, I take it you're a wizard, then?" she responds.

"And you're a witch. Now you're getting it—took you long enough to figure that one out," he grins once again.

Pursing her lips, she carefully inspects him: ginger, youthful, and a fair bit of a jokester. Dare she ask? Is this still a dream?

"If your first name is Fred, and your middle name 'incorrigible,' you don't happen to be Fred Weasley, do you?" she asks slowly, measuring every word with hesitance.

"Right again! And you…_Merlin's beard_!" he runs off into his kitchen and leaves her hanging.

"Oi! If you're insinuating that I'm Merlin's beard, you're _way_ off," she calls, getting up to follow him into the kitchen.

She finds him staring intently at a familiar photograph cradled in his hands.

"The old Gryffindor Quidditch team," she interrupts softly.

"And you're Katie Bell, aren't you?" he replies with a soft tremor in his voice.

"No, I'm Angelina Johnson. _Of course_ I'm Katie, who else would I be?" she replies, arching an eyebrow.

He smirks. "Actually, Angelina _Weasley _now. You're probably thinking that this is a dream and that I'm my uncle, aren't you?"

"Your _uncle_?" she cocks her head to the side, still not understanding the situation.

She's definitely beyond perplexed, and she knows she's probably making a huge fuss over nothing but she feels like she's trapped in a prison-like galaxy swirling with a multitude of impossibilities and maddening questions without answers.

He swallows visibly. "And you're probably thinking that this is some sort of a sick joke. Well, y'see, I _am _Fred Weasley, but my mum's Angelina and my dad's George."

Her jaw drops at the unexpected yet expected revelation, and he grins at the gobsmacked expression plastered across her face.

He grabs her hand, a fair warning that he's about to Apparate. "You'd better get rid of that expression because I'm about to take you to meet an old friend and it's rather unattractive."

.

"Come along now, Katie Bell," he calls, tugging her in the direction of…

_Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. _

He leads her around the back and through the back door, which announces their arrival with a tinkling of silver bells.

"Oi, Dad! Get back here," he hollers.

Oh Godric, no. She's not ready for this. She's not—

"Who's this?" a familiar voice asks.

She turns around to the sight of one of her oldest friends in the world: George Weasley.

She buries her fear deep in the dirt ground and allows herself to be enveloped in the thrilling sensations of reunion and renewed friendship. "Did you miss me, Georgie?"

"Good ol' Katie, you broke my wife's heart by leaving. Where'd you go?" George chuckles, ruffling her hair like he did when they were just children at Hogwarts.

She throws her arms around him, embracing him with a twenty-year-old accumulation of emotions and thoughts and tears. Noticing Fred slip away, she smiles at the fact that he's intuitive enough to give them some privacy.

"Oh, you know. Here and there. Everywhere," she replies offhandedly with a half-smile lurking on her face.

He steps out of her embrace and scrutinises her, making her fidget in discomfort. "You were in love with him."

Trust Georgie to know her inside and out like one of his joke items.

And then, the tears come, unbidden and unwanted. "Of course I was. That's why I fucking _left_."

George heaves the defeated sigh of a weary man who has lived a hundred lives and battled a dozen wars.

"Dammit, Katie. I loved him, too. I lost my other half that day. We _all _lost him that day. Every single day, I wake up and look in the mirror and see his face. Do you know how that bloody feels, Katie? It feels like all of Hell's laughing at me, mocking the fact that I'm living and he's dead. And there's nothing I can do about it because war and death are fucking hoarders."

She can see boundless flashes of pain glimmering in the unshed tears gathering in his agony-rimmed eyes. There's only so much one can take, and losing a twin is a godforsaken confluence of every existing pain that severs all ties with faith and brings every form of happiness to its shaking knees.

She opens her mouth to say something, anything. But nothing comes forth.

He smiles at her inability to say something reassuring. "Ah, Katie, you're alright. Besides, Angelina sorted me out, so I'm dandy now."

"Oh, Angie did _more _than sort you out," she teases, motioning at Fred, who's chatting with the customers.

He blushes, which induces a radiant smile from Katie. The first radiant smile in years.

"Oh look, _there's_ the infamous Weasley blush I've missed!" she exclaims gleefully.

He chuckles. "It's really great seeing you again, Katie. Even though you're as infuriating as ever."

"Oi, I resent that!" she scowls.

"Only joking, Katherine. You're perfectly charming," he says, a teasing smirk tugging at his lips.

She rolls her eyes. "Nice save, twat. Anyways, I've got a shift coming up, so I'd better get going."

"Aw, don't be like that, Katherine."

"I'm being perfectly serious, Forge."

"Oh fine, run off to your silly job. But make sure you come back because I'm expecting you for dinner one of these days."

"Maybe."

"Pretty please with a galleon on top?"

"Three."

"Two."

"Done."

"I'm holding you to that promise, Katie."

"And I'm holding you to those two galleons, Georgie."

"Which isn't at all that much, y'know."

"Oh, shut up."

.

All of the glass pieces of her were previously scattered by the wind to the four corners of the earth, but somehow he has found every glass piece buried beneath the stone and dirt. She holds her breath as everything falls into place, and he glues the pieces back together to make her (whole) recognisable once again.

More than an emotionless shell, more than a china doll without facial features.

_Katie_. Slightly broken but unquestionably intact.

But there's something, something familiar that's rising and falling like the morning tide in her insides—something that she hasn't felt in years—and she can't work it out. It surfaces when he shoots her that heart-stopping grin. And it recedes when he's gone. It deepens when he touches her hand and makes her laugh like she never has before, and it fades when he pulls his hand away and tells her that it's time for him to go. And he always looks at her like she's someone important, someone brilliant; he listens to her as if there's an underlying harmony within every word she says, an underlying harmony that melds with the other harmonies within her simple words to create a coexisting melody in the soft background music of their conversations.

She's starting to think that the night they first met was predetermined, like it was a fixed point in time that was always meant to happen because he makes her feel young again—he makes her feel like the old Katie Bell who never stopped smiling and joking around without a care in the world.

What does this all even mean?

It strangely feels a bit like love, but she's pretty damn sure that she has discarded every chance with love because loving someone else would be betraying the Fred she knew in her previous life before this one.

And she could never betray him, not even after death.

.

"Guess who?"

She stifles a scream at the pair of familiar hands covering her eyes and the sound of a familiar, teasing voice.

"Voldemort, of course."

"Right you are, Miss Bell. _Again_, might I add?"

She playfully shoves him, laughing as she asks, "Now Voldemort, why have you come so early today?"

"I'm taking you to _dinner_, and you're not to refuse me," he answers.

She opens her mouth to remind him that her shift isn't up until nine, but he beats her to it. "It's all good, love. I spoke to the boss lady earlier today and she's letting me abduct you a tad bit earlier today."

(A blush most certainly does _not_ rise in her cheeks when he calls her 'love.')

"Well. Then, what are you waiting for? Whisk me away with your charming noselessness!" she beams.

Taking her hand, he leads her outside to a vacant street, from which they Apparate from. When they arrive at a semi-fancy restaurant she has never been to, they're quickly led to a table for two, and they both end up ordering butterbeers and the first thing on the menu after seven minutes of brief indecision.

They don't talk for a few minutes, and she takes this opportunity to watch him over her butterbeer. Her eyes trace the shape of his eyes down to the slope of his nose and the smattering of freckles dusted across his cheeks. It's probably a weird quirk of hers, but she sometimes thinks that each freckle of his holds a tiny secret.

What are his secrets?

He's now staring back at her with a befuddled expression and a dash of seriousness in his normally-twinkling eyes. She holds back a gasp when he suddenly leans forward and kisses the tip of her nose. Her eyes are comically wide as she watches him draw back in surprise.

He reddens in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. "I…that wasn't supposed to happen. I mean, I've been wanting to, but…well. I need to tell you something."

She's ensnared in a temporary bout of speechlessness, and he takes her silence as a cue to continue. "I think I'm in love with you. No, I'm not teasing or joking this time. This is supposed to be completely wrong because you're almost old enough to be my mother, but it feel completely _right_. I've been trying to ignore this feeling, but…I'm in love with you."

Damn. How is she supposed to respond to this love confession? It's not every day that she gets a love confession, especially one that entails a person whose feelings she's not sure if she reciprocates.

"Say something, Katie," he whispers, running his hand through his hair in anxiety.

"I…I don't know what to say. You're two bloody decades younger than me. How…how would this work? W-What would your parents think?" she stammers, looking down at her drink.

"We could run away, you and me. They don't have to know," he pleads.

"I can't," she answers miserably.

A stone-cold expression abruptly overtakes the desperation in his face. "It's him, isn't it? It has always been my uncle for you, hasn't it?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," she says as wobbly tears threaten to spill from her eyes.

Please don't make her choose. Please don't m—

"I think it's best that we don't see each other until you've sorted your feelings out," he mutters tonelessly.

"Aw Fred, don't be like that."

"I can't watch you pine over my uncle while I'm hopelessly in fucking _love _with you, Katie. It'd kill me, and I'd rather not die this young. Good day, Katie," he concludes, exiting out the doors and Apparating on the spot.

(She hasn't felt this terrible in four months.)

.

She didn't realise how much she depended on him until now. She didn't realise that he, for some reason, took the time of day to repair the rusty mechanisms of her despondence, reprogramming them to introduce happiness as a constant fixture in her day. She didn't realise how much she smiled and laughed whenever he was around, how much she moped and sighed whenever he wasn't around.

There aren't enough stars for the number of times she has moped and sighed in the past three months.

She smiles as she remembers the first time that he bought her flowers. He handed them to her with a faint blush and a (shy) grin. She remembers teasing him about the flowers and him teasing her back and _Godric_, she has been so blind—the flowers were her favourite: peonies.

A warm, tingly feeling begins to settle at the bottom of her stomach when it suddenly hits her: she loves him.

(The Fred she knew in her previous life would want her to move on, wouldn't he?)

She misses the way his eyes crinkle at the sides when he's smiling or laughing. She misses the way he walks—his right foot before his left one with an inconspicuous sway of his hips. She misses the way his eyes light up and twinkle at the same time while he's engaged in a passionate rant. And most of all, she misses the way he hugs her—oddly tight yet comfortable all at once.

She misses everything about him. She _loves _everything about him.

They say that you don't realise what you've got until it's gone. And it's true.

.

_Miss Bell,_

_I made my offer a few months ago, and it still stands. Meet me in front of le Arc de Triomphe in Paris at 3 o'clock this afternoon._

_-Fred Weasley _

…

When she arrives in Paris, she dashes out of the train with only fifteen minutes to spare. Grabbing a map from a nearby tourist's hand, she continues running towards her destination, which is towering in the distance.

Thank Merlin that her endurance from Quidditch still exists.

She finally reaches it, huffing and puffing, with barely two minutes until three. Shielding her face from the sun's glare, she takes in her surroundings, keeping a lookout for a mop of ginger hair.

(Bloody hell, she's reuniting with the love of her life, and she's currently a red-faced mess.)

Her eyes suddenly meet a pair of blue eyes that she hasn't seen in three months. She begins walking towards him and when she reaches him, they stare at each other, reeling at the fact that they're actually seeing each other and they're here in Paris on a hypothetical plan to run away from reality.

"Well, I got your letter," she says lamely.

"Evidently," he grins.

"We're mad, aren't we?" she murmurs dazedly.

"Well, I can't imagine life without you, so it's a good thing that we're mad enough to fall in love, yeah?" he responds, gently taking her hand and making her heart skip a few beats.

She raises an eyebrow. "And that makes me wonder about the first seventeen years of your life."

"Oi, I was trying to be romantic," he groans.

"Oh fine, I'll give you another chance. And before I forget, I think I lov—"

He silences her with a kiss, a kiss that's arguably the best kiss of all time and history.

.

Once upon an infinity, Katie Bell was in love with Fred Weasley.

.

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**A/N: **Please don't favourite without reviewing! =)

-nic.


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